


Death

by telanaris



Series: Arcana One-Shots [2]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 16:16:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13930686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telanaris/pseuds/telanaris
Summary: “And you,” she said, poking him directly in his sternum with an accusatory finger, “have no real interest in the Arcana if you think it is all that simple.”“Oh?” And, gods, why did he look so delighted? Why did he practically purr? He leaned closer to her, her finger digging harder against his chest as he advanced. Close enough that she could smell him, leather and coffee grinds. “Then tell me, shopkeep, what does it mean?”Aredhel favored him with a self-satisfied smile. “Change. A change of thinking, a change of heart. Beginnings and endings, and the casting away of illusions. Transformation.”[Retelling of certain elements of Julian's route, beginning with the altercation in the shop. (Update got me feeling all kind of things.)]





	Death

As soon as she closed the door, shutting out the Countess and the misty street and the night, Aredhel collapsed. She let her body fall back against the door, the back of her head meeting the wood with a dull thump.

Just like Asra to slip out before things got _interesting._ She was not keen to go to the palace… but then again, she hadn’t really felt as though she were in a position to say no. The Countess was not asking anything untoward of her, nothing she wouldn’t have done anyway out of the privacy of her own shop, and Aredhel was sure the reward would be… significant, if her performance was found satisfactory.

But she was suspicious of authority as a _rule_ , and though she did not necessarily heed the rumors that Nadia was a tyrant (she certainly hadn’t seemed cruel or brutish in person) she was not eager to entangle herself in Vesuvian politics. Never mind the fact that it would leave the shop unattended for however long she was gone—or until Asra got back.

Oh, she wished Asra had not hurried off so _soon_ —

“Strange hours for a shop to keep.”

Aredhel’s heart leapt into her throat. She stiffened, peering into the dim shop. Briefly, she considered opening the door and bolting out into the street, but she dismissed the thought soon after. It was not in her nature, to leave the shop—her livelihood, her home—undefended.

 _Of course, if I’m unsuccessful,_ she thought to herself, wryly, venturing further into the shop, _if I’m stabbed or bludgeoned to death by a thief, I suppose I won’t have to worry about going to the palace._

“Behind you.”

True to his word, when she turns, she can see a dark figure looming against the door. Blocking her exit. 

_Of course._

She widened her stance, lowered her posture into a crouch.

Asra had been an orphan, a pickpocket once. And though his days of street fighting were long behind him, he’d taught Aredhel not only magic but simple tricks for defense, for the times when he was not around to look out for her. The intruder was tall, but slender; Aredhel thought she had a good chance of knocking him off balance if he got too close. And then, it would be easy: in her pocket, she still had the foldable knife she’d been using to cut herbs earlier that evening.

(If this intruder thought she was going to roll over and give him whatever he wanted, he had another thing coming.)

“Now, sources say this is the witch’s lair. So who might _you_ be?”

Even as the intruder advanced—even as her heart was _pounding_ , mad with adrenaline and fear—Aredhel grinned.

“Why, didn’t you hear? _I’m the witch_.”

Maybe not the master witch. Maybe not even a full-fledged witch in her own right.

But witch _enough._

She cast a spell of force in front of her, the power of it blowing back the stranger’s overcoat and sending him reeling backwards. In a moment he’d steadied himself, but he was closer to the counter now—right where she wanted him.

“Has he been teaching you his tricks? Unfortunately for you, I’ve seen them all befo-”

Aredhel closed her fist and yanked it back towards her body. As if pulling an invisible string, one of the hanging glass lanterns followed the motion… and collided directly into the back of the intruder’s head, shattering on impact.

He lets out a startled noise of surprise, buckling and dizzied from the force of it. It’s also knocked the mask off his face, clearing his throat.

_Got you._

In two steps Aredhel had cleared the space between them, pulling her knife out of her pocket as she backed him up against the door once more, the blade unsheathed and pressing against his throat.

Her mouth is already curled into a snarl, ready to bite or spit or fight more if she has to, to kick this mangy cur out of her shop—until he meets her gaze.

And then, she… oh, she falters, bravado abandoning her like air from a balloon.

He’s changed, of course. Doesn’t look anything like he does in the wanted ads. He’s lost an eye, it seems, for one thing. For another… well. There’s a steady stream of blood working its way down his face, and his hair is glittering with glass shards, but she’s almost certain it’s him.

“Doctor Devorak?”

His eye narrows, as though he’s not sure what to make of being recognized. “You seem to have me at a disadvantage. Well, more than one.” He glances pointedly at the knife at his throat, before turning his grey eyes back to hers. 

But it does little to discourage her; she presses the blade against his throat, watching the skin tighten under the pressure. “What are you doing here? Why shouldn’t I call the guards now?”

His eyes narrow. “Do you really think they’d hear you? Think they’d coming running _towards_ the sound of danger? If your faith in them is warranted, and rewarded, this city really has changed since the last time I was here.” He doesn’t bother to suppress a chuckle, though with the motion of it—the rising and falling of his throat—he nearly splits his own skin on the steel.

“I’m hardly a betting man, but I’d guess no one comes to defend you at all. Lucky for you, then, that I have no wish to do you harm.” He raises his gloved hands in surrender. “Tell me where Asra is hiding, and I will go.”

“Are you going to hurt him?”

The Doctor huffed indignantly. 

“If you want to know the truth, shopkeep, he’s far more likely to hurt _me._ History would suggest that’s the far more likely outcome.”

Somehow… she didn’t doubt that. It wasn’t in Asra’s nature to hurt others, to cause pain. But then again, it also wasn’t in Asra’s nature to believe in coincidences. All of a sudden his departure seemed a little _too_ timely.

_Did Asra know you were coming? Is he really hiding, as you say?_

“Asra isn’t here,” she said, fixing the doctor with a hard stare as she backed away from him, lowering the knife from his neck. “He left earlier this evening. He did not say where he was going, or how long he would be gone for.”

The doctor laughed. “Naturally. Well, that certainly sounds like him, vanishing without a trace.” He brought his sleeve to his face, wiping the blood from his brow. For a moment he gazed at the stain (almost _wistfully,_ Aredhel thought) before his eyes flickered to the curtains of the back room.

“Well, no sense in wasting the visit. You’re a fortune teller, aren’t you?” he asked, turning his attention back to Aredhel. “Tell my fortune, and I’ll leave your shop in peace.”

There was… a lot to protest, in that. The doctor had trespassed—she still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten in, but he certainly had not been welcomed—and this was most certainly not a _visit._ Just like she was most certainly not a _fortune teller._ The words brought to mind the charlatans and frauds that lined the market. Harmless, she knew, and ordinarily she harbored no ill will towards them, but it wounded her pride to be referred to as a _fortune teller._

And then of course their was the ludicrous notion that, after breaking into her shop—after she’d assaulted him—he thought it perfectly reasonable to expect a reading.

He must have been able to make out the quizzical look on her face, because he nodded to the curtains behind her, suggesting, “That is what the back room is for, isn’t it?”

Well, what could it hurt, really? She’d already gotten the best of him once. Probably, it was unwise to invite him further into the shop, away from the opened windows. But against all better judgement, when he had said he wouldn’t hurt her, she’d believed him. 

She knew it with the same intuition she used to read the Arcana. 

By the time she took her seat at the table, the doctor was already settled into his, fingers woven together, chin balancing atop his folded hands, watching her with interest. Aredhel tried not to be too distracted by the weight of his eyes upon her, curious and cold. She shuffled the deck, then placed it in the center of the table.

“Cut the deck,” she instructed.

The doctor watched her, his one good eye gleaming in the dim light of the back room, before he extended an arm, gloved fingers cutting the deck into three before stacking it once more.

Aredhel brought her hands back to the deck, fanning the cards out across the table.

“Draw three. Keep the face down.”

The doctor’s eyes narrowed.

“This isn’t how I am accustomed to receiving a reading.”

“Well, maybe that’s because you’re going to _fortune tellers,_ ” Aredhel snapped, “or, _frauds_ , instead of proper magicians.”

The doctor laughed, and it sounded good-natured, and merry. “Fair enough.” A long, slender finger traced the arc of the fanned cards, pulling three out of line, leaving them in the center of the table.

Aredhel flipped the first one. “The Tower.” 

“Oh my,” the doctor said, leaning forward to inspect the card: a flaming stag head, its mouth opened in a scream. “That doesn’t look very good.”

“It isn’t,” Aredhel said, “but it’s the only first card: this is your past. It symbolizes destruction, a tremendous upheaval. A catastrophe that leads to only misery and distress.”

Aredhel held her breath, turning her eyes back to the doctor. She was prepared for the atmosphere in that tiny room to thicken, solidify; the biggest catastrophe that had happened in the city in recent years was the very one that the doctor was accused of perpetrating.

But the doctor was only leaning back in his chair, eyebrow quirked, looking faintly amused.

“Go on.”

She flipped the second card. “Strength.”

The doctor laughed again. “Not if the outcome of our brawl is any indication.”

At that, Aredhel couldn’t help but smile. There was something in his laugh, so warm, so… but whatever it was, however it _touched_ her, she stifled it. She should not let her guard down, should not get comfortable around him. No matter how good-humored he was now, there was still the fact that he’d _broken into her home._

“It isn’t necessarily an indication of _physical_ strength,” she said, pushing the card across the table for his inspection. “It’s inner strength. Courage. The bravery to look inward, to know yourself. To take action. If the Tower represents a past filled with distress, Strength may represent a present where you are trying to…grapple with, or manage, that catastrophe.”

“And the last card?”

“Your future,” Aredhel said, and flipped the final card. 

She did not even need to name it: the imagery on the card, the skull-faced horse with a scythe, said all she needed to say.

“Death?” the doctor said, his tone one of disbelief. Then he laughed, loud and uncontrolled and _bitter_ , nothing like the amusement of earlier. “You’ve got to be joking.”

His hands meet the tabletop so hard that each of the cards flutter, precariously; in the next instant he rises to his feet, looming over Aredhel ominously, face stretched into an ugly grimace.

“You really had me going there for a minute, shopkeep. Thought you were the real deal, the genuine article. But now I see it’s all tricks and deception.” He bent over his planted hands, leaning in over her to whisper, ominously, “Death cast her gaze on this wretch and turned away. She has no interest in an abomination like me.”

It was all so dramatic—so goddamned _theatrical_ and tragically wrong—that all Aredhel could do was blink.

It was enough time for him to pass through the curtains and back into the shop proper. When Aredhel followed him, she found him making his way for the exit.

And, _really,_ she should have just let him go. There were about a thousand good reasons not to prolong the stay of an accused murderer in her home. But he had called her reading _tricks and deception._ And maybe it was because she was still puffed up from Countess Nadia’s tepid praise, or maybe it was the way he had _laughed_ at her, like she was trying to con him, but she was _not_ going to allow herself to be called a fraud in her own damn shop.

She reached up for his shoulder, and spun him around to face her.

“And _you_ ,” she said, poking him directly in his sternum with an accusatory finger, “have no real interest in the Arcana if you think it is all that simple.”

“Oh?” And, gods, why did he look so _delighted_? Why did he practically purr? He leaned closer to her, her finger digging harder against his chest as he advanced. Close enough that she could _smell_ him, leather and coffee grinds. “Then tell me, shopkeep, what _does_ it mean?”

Aredhel favored him with a self-satisfied smile. “Change.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Change?”

“A change of thinking,” she said, tilting her head up to him. "A change of heart. Beginnings and endings, and the casting away of illusions. _Transformation_. Death may be uninterested in you, but change is the nature of life, and it's coming for you. A big one, I’d guess. It is time to put the past behind you, and embrace the next journey.”

The doctor looked at her, his gaze a mixture of amusement and puzzlement. “It would be easier to die, I think, than to be free of my past. Some would suggest death is the only way to be rid of it.”

Aredhel scoffed, waving her hand, as if she could dismiss his ignorance with a gesture. “Only a fool thinks he can stand in the way of change.”

“Well then you really don't know me,” he grinned. “I’m the biggest fool of all.”

“I’m serious,” Aredhel warned, laying her palm against his shoulder. “Get stuck in the past and it will consume you, as cleanly as Death polishes a bone—smooth. Trust me,” she added, “I know this as well as anyone.”

If she hadn’t let go of her past—let go of that fact that she _could not remember half of it,_ that she had know idea who she had been, or how she had come to be here—she’d have gone mad long ago. 

Sometimes… sometimes change was the only option.

But no matter how serious her tone, the doctor remained glib. “I'll take it under advisement,” he said with a smirk.

And then, he was gone; backed away from her, back across the shop, back towards the door. Stooping over his mask, he called over his shoulder, “You’ve been hospitable, so I’ll let you in a on secret. Your witch friend will be back for you. But when he returns…” And then he turned to face her, holding his mask loosely in his hand, and his gaze was hard. 

“Seek me out, then. For your own sake. He’s far more dangerous than you know.”

 _How foreboding._ What kind of a history must he have had with Asra for the doctor to have such a poor opinion of her teacher? She didn’t pay his warning any mind. Asra _was_ dangerous; any magician worth their salt was dangerous. That didn’t mean he would hurt her. 

Still, she was curious, full of unanswered questions that she knew Asra would only deflect, as he often did. So if she wanted them answered, her best bet was the man before her.

Deftly, she slid around him, blocking the door with her body. “What are you really doing here?” she asked, fists diving into her pockets so that she might incentivize an answer by brandishing her knife.

The doctor favored her with another cheeky grin, planting his hand on the door over her shoulder and leaning over her. He clicked his tongue, before pulling _her_ knife out of his own pocket, folded and harmless, tossing it into the air and catching it just as deftly.

 _When had he taken it…?_ Her mind raced. Earlier, when she’d been lecturing him about the _Arcana_ , of all things—when he’d loomed over her— _had he been fishing in my pockets, then?_

“Very spirited, aren’t you, shopkeep?” he asked, tucking the knife back into one of the front pockets of her apron. “But you’re not the only one with tricks.” 

Then his grin softened. He backed away from the door, and heaved a sigh. “As _enchanting_ as this has been,” he said, actually _waggling an eyebrow_ at her,  “I really must be going.” 

He favored her with one long, lingering look… but then, without another word, he pulled his mask over his face once more, obscuring his features.  

“Don’t let him fool you, shopkeep,” he warns once more, but his voice is muffled and strange-sounding, and when Aredhel moves out of the door frame, he does not immediately move to leave. When he does, though, he pulls the door closed behind him loud enough to slam, the bell tinkling fitfully in its cradle.

Aredhel rushed to the window to watch him leave, following his shadow in the dark until it receded into the mist. 

She should have called the guards, probably. Still could. But the truth was she had just about as high a regard for them as the doctor did—they hardly protected anyone, mostly using their position to take advantage. Even if she wanted to call them, she doubted they’d come running. But she didn’t want to—she felt, inexplicably, like she _shouldn’t._ Not because of the doctor’s warning, but because she felt… tethered, somehow. To him, she supposed. It wasn’t the first time. It meant she’d probably see him again.

Probably best then not to get him locked up. Not now, anyway. Not yet. 

She did not leave her post until his footsteps were swallowed by the night, and the street was silent once more.

**Author's Note:**

> i am no tarot expert but i'm like 90% sure that death does not ALWAYS mean death in the literal sense.
> 
> If you enjoyed my writing, please consider following me on tumblr where I write as 4biddenleeches. :) My prompt box is always open if there is something particular you’d like to see!


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